Guest Blogger - Response to "God is Pro-You"

This is a response to Pastor Johnson’s “God is Pro-You” blog, from the perspective of someone who had an abortion…

“Pastor Johnson’s blog has led me to share my story with you and the awful effects it has had on my life.  It’s been approximately twenty years of pain since I had an abortion.  I was young and foolish, but that doesn’t excuse what I did.  I committed murder.

Before you ask the question, “How could she?”  Let me share with you some of my story.  My dad had left when I was 9, so I didn’t have a loving and spiritually mature man to lead me closer to Jesus and to help me figure out life.  I started running away from home at age 15, because I wanted to run away from the pain.  But there was no relief.

I began to look for love in all the wrong places.  I was a partier.  I was involved with drugs.  During that time I was raped.  My life was a living hell.  I don’t blame my parents, but the reality is that they didn’t pattern Jesus Christ for me.  So I looked for love in all the wrong places.  Boyfriends, drugs and parties were what I turned to, but still…there was no relief from my pain.

I grew up going to church.  I turned to the church for help, but there was none, only judgment.  I knew there was a god, but I was convinced that he didn’t like me because of all the things I was doing, so I just did them more to try to drown out the pain and the voice of disapproval.  I was looking for love, but not finding it.

Then I got pregnant.  When I found out…everyone, including my abusive boyfriend, told me that I should get an abortion.  They convinced me that it was the right thing to do.  At that point in time and for many years after I thought of the abortion as just an act, not a person whose life I had no right to end.

I am so guilt-stricken.  I am so ashamed.  I suffer in silence.  I wake up at night in terror hearing the cries of children.  I’ve spent 20 years hiding this horrible dark secret from my friends.  Very few people know this about me.  I’m still…so ashamed.  Every time I see a pro-life bill-board, or commercial or, in this case, Pastor’s blog, I’m reminded of what I did.

The pain continues.  However, here is what I am slowly beginning to realize through Christian counseling from my counselor and my pastors.  I can grieve the loss of my baby.  Yes.  It’s my fault.  Yes.  I made the choice.  Yes.  I am living daily with the consequences of my sin.  But, this is what the Lord is leading me to realize.  I can live daily in the reality of what Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30).  That means that my sins are paid for…all of them.  “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  I am loved.  I am forgiven.  I am reconciled.

I can only pray that my story helps you.  If you are a woman contemplating an abortion, don’t do it.  If you are a woman who has had an abortion like me and you are suffering in silence, then take it to Jesus.  He loves you.  He loves your child.  You are forgiven.  Believe in Jesus and trust Him.  As Pastor Johnson said, “God is definitely pro-you…no matter what you’ve done.”